Luckpenny Land

by Freda Lightfoot

  Meg felt a flood of relief. ‘Is she still here?’

  The pale eyes regarded her in vaguely troubled surprise. ‘She has not been a particularly good influence upon our other, er, residents. Something of a trouble-maker is our Miss Ellis.’

  Meg’s lips twitched. ‘May I see her, please?’

  ‘That is rather irregular. It can be most unsettling for our girls to have visitors from the outside.’

  ‘From the outside?’ Meg echoed the words in amazement.

  Miss Blake leaned forward. ‘Are her family ready to reclaim her?’

  Reclaim her? Meg was horrified by such language, but was forced to admit that they weren’t. Miss Blake sniffed, almost with pleased satisfaction.

  ‘You must appreciate that most of our girls have been abandoned, by their family, by their friends, by society. There is nowhere for them to go. The charity of Greenlawns is all they have to depend on.’

  ‘Kath - Katherine - has not been abandoned. She still has friends. Me, for instance.’ Meg smiled sweetly, grey eyes issuing a challenge.

  ‘Are you wishing to take her with you today?’

  Meg winced at the implication that Kath was no more than a parcel to be collected or abandoned as if in a left luggage office. ‘That is my intention.’

  ‘If you do so, you must undertake to be completely responsible for her health and well-being. She has not been – well, and of course, she may sin again.’

  ‘I will gladly undertake to care for her.’

  A long pause, then a small bell was lifted and rung, sounding loud in the still room. An even longer pause followed it. Finally, steps were heard hurrying along the corridor outside, a rapid knock and a figure appeared, slightly breathless.

  ‘Sorry, ma’am, I’d just gone out for a moment.’ Instructions were given to bring Katherine Ellis to the office. As the heels clacked away again, Meg cleared her throat. ‘I understand that there was a child?’

  Miss Blake adjusted her spectacles and returned her piercing gaze to the book, reading the reports written by each name, giving details of each girl’s history and behaviour. Katherine Ellis had a long string of convictions for temper and the inciting of rebellion. If this young woman planned to take her away with her, Miss Blake would not object. ‘A female child,’ she read and Meg cringed at a baby being so described. ‘Born 27 March, weighing six pounds, seven ounces.’ She closed the book, as if the matter were dealt with.

  ‘And?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Where is it - she?’

  ‘In the orphanage, awaiting adoption, of course. We are not a children’s home, Miss Turner. We offer no provision for infants here.’

  ‘I see. Have any adoptive parents been found for her?’ Meg held her breath, wondering what answer she hoped for.

  ‘Indeed it is difficult at present, to find adoptive parents, with the war. People have enough to worry about without taking on other people’s by-blows.’

  The word was so offensive to Meg that she had to bite her lip very hard to keep her good manners in check. Then came the familiar tap of heels, the rap upon the door, and the woman was there again. ‘Katherine Ellis, ma’am.’

  Meg gazed upon a stranger.

  ‘Kath?’ Not a vestige of girlhood remained in the narrow planes of the sunken cheeks. The lovely swinging bob had been cut close to the finely shaped head. The porcelain skin was ashen, almost grey, the hazel eyes rimmed by the red of exhaustion. And the hands, those beautiful tapering white fingers with pearl shaped nails that Meg had always envied, now picked restlessly at the cotton of her green overall. Workworn, blistered, the nails bitten down to the quick, they looked red raw, as if they’d recently been bleeding. ‘Dear God, what have you done to her?’

  At the sound of Meg’s voice the heavy lids lifted, revealing a blankness in the eyes, and a terrible despair. The sight brought such pain to Meg’s heart she had to fight hard not to burst into tears as emotion thickened her throat.

  ‘Meg?’ There was wonder in the question, and disbelief.

  Then Meg opened her arms and Kath stepped into them with a quiet sob.

  Lime Street railway station was thronged with people, many of them in uniform, most were crying. Meg felt like crying too, though not for the same reason. She wasn’t seeing someone she loved off to the war. That had been done months ago and not a day had passed since when she hadn’t thought of Jack. Now she thought of him for a different reason.

  When Kath’s baby had been put into her arms, Meg had gazed down upon the small bright face, the halo of glossy black curls, the violet blue eyes, and had known instantly whose child she was. Everything seemed to come clear in that moment. It was all so obvious, so stupidly plain.

  She wondered now how she had managed to remain so calm. There had been no doubt in her mind, and if there had, one glance at Kath’s face confirmed her worst fears.

  ‘Jack?’ Meg had whispered, and Kath had put her hands to her lips to stop the sob that escaped.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  That was all that had been said. All that needed to be said. They had signed the necessary papers, collected the child’s documentation and walked out on to the bustling streets into the sunshine of a perfectly ordinary spring day. But Meg felt it would never be ordinary for her again. Life would never be the same again. That simple happiness she’d found was now gone. Vanished for ever. She felt numb inside.

  The strange sensation around her heart must be pain, though it was difficult to describe it as such. Her body continued to function although it did so of its own accord. She could walk, count the money out of her purse to pay the bus fare, hand in her ticket at the station. But for these things no thought was required. Her mind was not in any way engaged. It existed now in another universe, another time, lost in some far distant place. Let it rest there for a while, instinct warned. There would be time enough later to waken it and use it to examine the problem.

  Doors were banging, a hiss of steam, the sound of desperate sobbing from the mass of people facing separation from their loved ones. Bags were flung into compartments, windows dropped open, hands reached out. Meg tried not to watch.

  A whistle sounded.

  ‘I can’t come with you.’

  Meg struggled to focus her gaze upon Kath. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I can’t come with you. I can’t go home. Not now. Not like this.’

  ‘Where will you go then?’

  ‘Somewhere. Anywhere.’

  ‘Oh, Kath. Have you any money?’

  ‘Some. Enough for a day or two. I’ll get a job, join up perhaps.’ Kath opened a carriage door and pushed Meg inside, the child still in her arms. ‘Can’t you see? I’d be no good as a mother. I don’t know her. I don’t even love her.’

  Meg was shocked, annoyed suddenly at Kath’s lack of responsibility. ‘How can you say such a thing about your own child?’

  A small sob sounded, quickly stifled. ‘I’ve never held her in my arms, not even when she was born. They wouldn’t let me. Now it’s too late.’

  ‘Kath, this is madness. You must come home. We need you. You need us. Look at you, you’re like a walking skeleton.’ Again a whistle sounded and the guard was moving along the platform, slamming doors, telling people to stand back. ‘You can’t just abandon her like this.’

  ‘I’m not. She’s got you, and Jack. I’m sorry if we hurt you. We didn’t mean to. Don’t blame him. It was a game, that’s all, a kind of madness during that last lovely hot summer when we believed, hoped, that war wouldn’t come. Love her for me. You’re much better at that than me. Look how I’ve treated you, my best friend, my only friend! I don’t deserve either of you.’ The tears were spilling over, then she turned abruptly and hurried away.

  The last sight Meg had of Kath was her little tan hat with the silly veil disappearing into the crowd.

  Meg walked into the farmhouse like a sleepwalker. She’d taken a taxi from Kendal Station to Broombank, extravagant but necessary,
she’d decided, with the baby and her bag. She’d no recollection of the journey, thankful only that it was over and - and now what? Where did she go from here? Without Jack. Without Kath. The shock was easing and in its wake came pain. Pain so terrible it didn’t seem possible to bear it.

  ‘Meg?’

  Effie, dear Effie, standing in the doorway, her arms outstretched. ‘Oh, Meg.’

  Meg fought to hold on to her self control, laid the baby in Effie’s arms and watched as the girl, little more than a child herself, drew her close and whispered love into her ear. Love. What was that? Not something to rely on, not if it brought this much pain.

  She would go upstairs, lie down for a bit, think over this terrible thing that had happened to her and sort out how she felt about it. Meg thought she only needed to rest and it would all come right in her head.

  Tam, who had evidently been sitting at the table, taking supper, stood up, blocking her way. Big and patient, saying nothing, asking no questions. But something drove her to look up into his eyes. No sparkling, glinting green challenge in them today. Only a gentle wash of jade, like rain on glass.

  ‘Kath is all right,’ she said, and as he nodded he opened his arms and this time, unable to prevent herself, Meg walked into them. She laid her head against the broad strength of his chest, felt his arms wrap her in their warmth and let the tears come. Great wet globs that rolled down her cheek and into the neck of her best blue blouse. Not a sound came from her throat, only the silent anguish of a woman betrayed.

  Chapter Twenty

  It was all around the close-knit community in no time at all that Meg Turner had a baby. Even the thrill of Dunkirk failed to distract the gossips for long. In no time they were back to worrying over whose baby it was, and how it had appeared, out of the blue, in Meg Turner’s house.

  Effie was shocked to see how quick everyone was to condemn. ‘Sanctimonious old biddies,’ she muttered as she stood in a queue for new ration books and overheard a snippet of tittle-tattle she wouldn’t repeat to her worst enemy, let alone her lovely Meg. Though she supposed the long hard weeks of winter had something to do with it, what with keeping them all indoors so long, and then Meg being busy with the lambing and disappearing off to Liverpool so soon after that. There were plenty ready to think she’d emerged from the winter with a babe in her arms. Folk being folk would naturally assume the worst. But if they stopped to think about it, they’d see it was a daft idea. Not unless they believed in immaculate conception.

  This last phrase had been learned in the Scripture lessons at school, explained by a blushing Miss Shaw. Not that she need have worried where Effie was concerned. You’d have to get up early to make me blush, Effie thought, with some pride. But she enjoyed new words and struggled with the newspaper every morning in her efforts to improve her reading.

  The woman’s voice rose and carried on the morning breeze and the people in the queue heaved forward so as not to miss a scrap. ‘Who would have thought it of her? So well brought up, and her father quite a big man in the chapel.’

  ‘Indeed, I admit to being quite shocked myself when I heard,’ said Hetty Davies, quite put out that she’d not been aware a baby was even expected, in all of her regular visits to Broombank. ‘How she kept it hidden I cannot imagine.’

  ‘We mustn’t jump to conclusions,’ warned the less excitable Miss Shaw, privately thinking with joy of yet another child for her school, in the fullness of time. ‘It’s true there has been no sign that a baby was on the way, and Meg is not at all the sort of girl one would expect to...’

  ‘No smoke without fire,’ chimed in another.

  ‘She was seen driving through town in a taxi. No doubt went away somewhere private to have the baby, tried to hide the fact, and then couldn’t get it adopted because of the war, so had to fetch it home again.’

  Another added the titillating information that Meg had a man staying in her house. ‘Irish. Been living there for some time, I believe, and not in the barn neither. Now what is that, if not blatant disregard for what is right and proper? Doesn’t it just go to show?’

  ‘Tch. You never do know about people, unless you live with them.’

  ‘Oh, dear me, no.’

  Effie had heard enough. ‘You bad-mouthed old besoms,’ she shouted, making them all jump as no one had seen her small figure hiding behind large bosoms and baskets. ‘How dare you condemn her when you don’t know nowt about it? A saint, that’s what my Meg is, and if you knew the truth you’d chop your lying tongues off.’ Then to her complete mortification, Effie burst into tears and had to turn and run from the queue and the shocked, questioning eyes. She’d reached the Shambles before she realised she still hadn’t got the new ration books after near an hour of queuing and would have to go back and start all over again.

  Yet the rumours persisted, and, as expected, Joe came.

  ‘What’s all this then?’ he began, mildly enough. Meg lifted her chin a fraction and tightened her lips to something very like a button, saying nothing. ‘Where’s this child you’re supposed to have? Or is it all daft talk?’

  ‘No, I do have a baby living here,’ Meg admitted. ‘But nor is there any truth in what you’re thinking and everyone is saying.’

  Joe took a seat by the fire and glared accusingly at his daughter, still far too wilful in his opinion. ‘Where is she then?’

  ‘Upstairs asleep, and I’ll not have her disturbed.’

  Meg was glad, for once, that they were alone. Effie was upstairs with Melissa, and Tam was out seeing to the cows. It would give her time to calm her father down, explain something of the truth. ‘She isn’t mine. I brought her from Liverpool. She’s - she’s an orphan.’

  ‘Orphan my eye! What were you doing in Liverpool?’

  Not for a moment did Meg consider telling him about Kath. ‘I’ll not have anyone say different. How can she be mine anyway? Don’t talk soft.’

  ‘It’s not that long since that lad o’yourn left. It could easily be yours.’

  Meg swallowed carefully, painfully aware that he spoke the truth. She wasn’t a virgin, after all. That one moment of madness in the barn with Jack could very easily have resulted in a child. But that had been more than a year ago and they’d never repeated it, not once since. But Kath had.

  Oh, but how different things would have been if Meg herself hadn’t denied him the love he clearly wanted. Maybe he wouldn’t have bothered with Kath then. She couldn’t help wondering if it was all her own fault.

  Meg would have written to Jack with joy if the baby had been hers, eager to tell him he was to become a father. They would quickly have married and everyone would have counted a little on their fingers and smiled and said, ‘Ah, yes, but they’re young and there is a war on.’ But that was not the way it had gone. Melissa was Kath’s baby. Kath’s and Jack’s. And it was all too terrible to think of.

  She was spared from answering Joe’s direct accusation by the arrival of Tam. Joe took one look at the tall, well-set Irishman, got to his feet and stood glowering before him.

  ‘So this is how the land lies. Mebbe you’re the one who has caused this trouble.’

  Tam’s brows lifted very slightly in surprise. At any other time Meg might have laughed at the comical sight of her father trying to outface a man a good six inches taller than himself. But this wasn’t the moment.

  ‘Dad, leave Tam alone. Don’t make a bigger fool of yourself than you already have.’

  ‘A fool am I? And there’s me thinking it’s my daughter who’s the laughing stock around here. I can see why. I think thee’d best leave, son.’

  ‘Leave?’ Tam smiled down at Joe. ‘Now why would I be doing that?’

  ‘Pack your bags, or whatever it is you roving Irish carry your chattels in, and go.’

  Tam lifted his eyes slowly to Meg and held them for a long moment before returning them to Joe. There was some message in it, one she couldn’t quite read, or perhaps didn’t wish to. ‘I’ll go when I’m good and ready, or when Meg tells
me to. I don’t think you have any say in the matter.’

  ‘Have I not? We’ll see about that.’ Joe was beside himself with fury, almost spitting with rage. ‘Nobody gainsays me without being sorry for it,’ he roared. ‘I’ll not have my daughter preyed upon by strangers. Foreigners at that.’

  Meg took a quick step forward to lay a calming hand upon Joe’s shoulder. ‘Dad, stop it. Tam is right. This is my house, my farm, and you are the visitor here.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’d be obliged if you left without any bother. Tam has nothing to do with any of this. He is my employee and, I hope, my friend. I’ll not have him tainted by your nastiness.’

  ‘Thee has a funny way o’choosing thy friends.’

  ‘The choice is mine, not yours.’

  Joe glared furiously at her. ‘Then don’t expect me to come and bail you out when nobody will lift a finger to help thee, because of him and what he’s done to you.’

  Meg almost laughed. ‘When have you ever bailed me out of anything? Never. More likely the very opposite. Everything I have here has been achieved in spite of you, not because of your help which has been non-existent. Now get out, before I forget I’m still your daughter and thump you one.’

  So startled was Joe by this spirited response that he glowered once more at each of them before storming out, slamming the door behind him just to show who was boss.

  ‘You stood up for me, against your own father. I’m flattered.’

  ‘Don’t be. I’ll not have Joe telling me what to do. Nor you neither.’ She turned from him and walked from the room, but his soft chuckle had a strange effect upon her all the same.

  The small Austin car left the rough cart track and started along the lane. It drove past a cluster of whitewashed cottages around a former bobbin mill and on over a humped bridge. Ahead lay the wild grandeur of mountains and the rugged outline of Goat Scar and Raven Crag.

  ‘I hear you have a baby staying with you?’ Rosemary Ellis had stopped to offer Meg a lift into town and she put the question briskly, as if the answer were of no consequence. Meg felt her heart quicken.